Page 21 of Bound By Roses

And just like that, I have to deal with yet another flight of stairs with absolutely no room in my pants.

CHAPTER SEVEN

ABBY

With Quinn gone and the urge to become one with him temporarily sated, I decide to make my way out of the tower and explore the cluster of small islands that are to be our home for at least the next few weeks. I’d come straight to this tower after fleeing the underwater city because I knew it would have the best vantage point. I’m tired of letting Imelda catch me off guard. I refuse to be a victim.

From what I can gather, the upper portion of Marein consists of five small islands connected by white bridges of stone and bits of coral that glisten in the setting sun. The islands encircle a sixth island in the shape of a ring that houses the whirlpool that guards the entrance to the underwater city. Despite the destruction, many of these buildings appear salvageable. A new door or a rebuilt wall, and they’ll be good as new. I could choose any of these to make a temporary home with Quinn, but I have my heart set on staying in that tower.

Quinn didn’t seem to mind when I broke the news to him, but he may not have come to the same realization. He’d spent so much time hiding away in his tower in Rosewood, and now I’m asking him to do it all over again. He should be able to embracethe city that was once home to his mother and not forsake it to hide away on the surface with me.

I continue my walk around the ring of islands until I stumble upon a plot of land that appears to have no ruins at all. Even more strange is that there seems to be a mixture of both soil and sand, as if this was once used as a garden of sorts and time and weather has allowed the beach to reclaim it. I kneel down and lay my hand flat against it, willing something to grow. My mind wanders to the first vegetable I’d tasted in Rosewood and envision one sprouting from the soil beneath my hand. The dirt shifts, and a leafy stem pokes through. I pull it, and out pops a pretty pathetic version of what I’d been trying to grow.

The carrot in my hand is small and shrivelled, and the colouring is more white than orange. It’s nothing compared to what grows in Rosewood, but people who know what they’re doing tend that soil to regularly. I can grow them from nothing, but without the richness of the earth, this is likely all I’ll produce. At least figuring out how to tend a garden will give me something to do over the next few weeks.

The sudden sounding of a horn sends my heart into a panicked flutter. I stand quickly, reaching for one of the knives strapped at my waist. Another horn sounds, and then another and another. More join them, and the tune becomes something mournful. This isn’t the blaring warning we’d heard when Imelda attacked.

I follow the sound to the furthest island from shore and spot movement in the water. One by one, heads pop up from gentle waves that reflect the pinks and purples of the clear sky above. Even with the sun dipping towards the waves, its rays warm my skin in a way that the sun above Lunae never could.

I watch as ten bobbing heads become twenty.

Thirty.

Sixty.

A hundred or more.

Every siren must be in the water now, and it doesn’t take me long to figure out why. Floating alongside the bobbing heads are the bodies of those who fell during Imelda’s attack. I can’t see them clearly from where I stand on the shore, but I know in my heart that this is a funeral of sorts. Erwyn had asked if the bodies were returned to the sea. It seems that, even without their souls intact, he’s granting them a proper burial.

There’s something about this moment that feels sacred and a sudden unease washes over me. I shouldn’t be witnessing this. The mournful cries and low rumbles of shells being blown into as each body is swept out to sea by an unseen current is not for me to witness. I’m an unwelcome interloper. A symbol of their enemy. Many blame me for the deaths of their kin, and I can’t begrudge them that. We all need someone to blame.

These people aren’t performing their rituals and traditions in the hopes that the souls of their love ones will move on into the afterlife. The wraiths destroyed all possibility of that. These people who once lived and breathed and laughed are nothing more than soulless husks now. Not dead, but erased entirely. If the sirens believe the same as we do in Lunae, funerals are a temporary farewell until souls meet again in the afterlife. But this? This is a goodbye. There will be no reunions for those devoured by the wraiths. They only exist now in the memories of those who knew them.

A splash somewhere to my right catches my attention. At first I don’t see anything, but then soft laughter carries on the wind, coaxing me closer. I have to squint against the sunlight and just manage to make out the silhouettes of two people—one on land, and one in the water.

“Oh, no,” a voice says, and I recognize it instantly. Petra scowls as I move closer, and Teagan’s smile widens. It’s so good to see her smiling again. And not the fake smiles she wears whenshe’s trying to hide her feelings. I’ve known her long enough to know when it’s genuine.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” I say. I should leave them alone, but I’ve been worried about Teagan for so long that my feet refuse to turn away from her. I’d thought she looked great before, but seeing her up close, carelessly splashing amongst the waves, has relief washing over me and loosening muscles that have been tight for far too long.

Petra rolls her eyes. “But she did mean to interrupt.” She’s looking at Teagan, so I know she only responded aloud so I wouldn’t miss the insult.

Teagan flashes me an apologetic look and I give her what I hope is a reassuring smile.

Petra sighs and then walks away from us. “You don’t have to go,” I call after her. She ignores me, moving towards the bridge that will lead her to the central island.

A sudden splash of water hits me, and I whip around to find Teagan laughing silently. I knew her voice was gone, but this is the first time I’ve seen her laugh since that awful night in the woods. I crouch down to the water’s edge and splash her back, though she has the clear advantage of already being soaked.

“Can I see your tail?” I ask without thinking.

She doesn’t seem offended by the question and immediately flips onto her back, bringing her massive tail out of the water. The colours match that of the setting sun and when I reach a hand out to touch it, it feels nothing like I’d expect. Teagan’s fins are as thin as silk, yet they feel as sturdy as leather. She laughs again as I run my fingers along one of the pink frills. So apparently, they’re ticklish, too.

“You look happy,” I say after a while, and she nods enthusiastically, but there’s a hint of something else in her eyes. Even if she’s found her place as a siren, she’s bound to the sea. It’s both a gift and a prison.

“Have you tried changing back?”

She nods and then shakes her head. She can’t do it, and I know better than to ask if she has any idea how long she’ll be stuck in this form. When her smile returns, she touches the scar on her throat. The wound healed well, leaving only a pink and white rippling of the skin where Quinn’s claws tore into her.

“Does it hurt?” I ask, misunderstanding her meaning. She shakes her head and then points out to the sea before touching her throat again. “I don’t understand.”

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